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SCIENCESaturday 17 October 2015

Fossil teeth show earliest sign of people in southern Asia

MALCOLM RITTER cies didn’t enter Europe
AP Science Writer until only about 40,000 to
NEW YORK (AP) — Doz- 45,000 years ago. Maybe
ens of fossil human teeth Neanderthals crowd-
from a cave in China ed them out, basically
show that people lived out-competing them as
in southern Asia more hunter-gatherers until
than 80,000 years ago, their populations started
researchers report. to fade, the researchers
Before this, the earliest suggest.
well-dated fossils firmly In a journal commentary,
linked to our species in Robin Dennell of the Uni-
southern Asia were only versity of Exeter in Eng-
around 45,000 years old. land suggests that cold
Our species, Homo sapi- winters might be a better
ens, is thought to have explanation.
appeared in Africa Eric Delson of Lehman
around 200,000 years College in New York,
ago and later spread to who was not part of the
other continents. The de- research, called the dis-
tails of that dispersal are covery potentially excit-
still murky. The discovery ing. But given the impli-
in China’s Hunan prov- cations, he said, the re-
ince argues against a searchers must present a
theory that the first wave more detailed documen-
reached southern Asia tation of the geological
only about 60,000 years setting of the find, which
ago. is crucial for the age es-
The finding may mean timate.
that people arrived in Shara Bailey, an expert
multiple waves, said Ma- on the evolution of hu-
ria Martinon-Torres of Uni- man teeth at New York
versity College London, a University who also didn’t
study author. participate in the re-
She and authors from search, said some teeth
China and elsewhere re- appear to have cavities,
ported the discovery of which is unusual for hu-
47 teeth in the journal Na- mans living so long ago.
ture on Wednesday. They Cavities aren’t common
could not date the teeth until the appearance of
directly, but analysis of agriculture changed the
nearby mineral samples human diet about 10,000
and animal fossils indicat- years ago, she said.q
ed the teeth are some-
where between 80,000 This photo provided by
and 120,000 years old. the journal Nature shows
The finding raises the human upper teeth found
question of why our spe- in the Fuyan Cave of Hunan
province in southern China.

Associated Press